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Public Hearing on Dyster Budget Set for next Tuesday

By Tony Farina

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A bruising battle over Mayor Paul Dyster’s proposed budget that relies heavily on tax increases, job cuts, and service cutbacks to close the city’s gap between revenues and expenses is already under way behind the scenes and will go public next Tuesday, Nov. 13, at a City Hall hearing called by Council Chairman Sam Fruscione.

Fruscione said the hearing, set to begin at 7 p.m., will give taxpayers an opportunity to be heard on the proposed spending plan that would hike the homeowner tax rate by about 8.3 percent and increase the tax rate to businesses by about 5 percent.
“We will be listening to what the people have to say,” Fruscione told the Reporter even as he and his fellow lawmakers comb through the mayor’s $83,644, 349 budget proposal for 2013 which the mayor says is down $2.4 million from the current year’s “bare bones budget.”

But while the mayor says he has cut the fat out of the budget and the plan is down to muscle and bone, at least some on the council believe there is much more that can be cut to avoid any more pain to beleaguered city taxpayers.

Fruscione says he and council members Glenn Choolokian and Bob Anderson are going through the Dyster plan line by line, “and we intend to eliminate the fat out of the budget that the mayor has put in there for himself, things like consultant lines, undesignated supply and service lines, overtime and stipend pay, and raises for some of his staff. We’ve found at least $1 million already and we are going to be working to reduce that massive tax burden on our residents.”

As things stand now, the council would have to pass a local law to increase the taxes above the 2 percent state cap. If the tax increase is above the cap and no local law is approved, any extra money brought in over and above the cap amount would have to be placed in a reserve account for future needs or otherwise have strings attached to its use.

Dyster blames several factors for the city’s fiscal crunch including increased wages for workers under contract, but he concedes that while his spending freeze strategy through much of 2010 and 2011 and even 2012 accumulated savings, it was ultimately undone by the fight between the state and the Seneca Nation over gaming rights which has cost the city about $60 million in casino money.

“It was a great strategy,” he told the council in his budget message.

“But we could not have predicted that the State-Seneca impasse would continue for three years, draining the city of its reserves and creating a full-blown cash crunch warning at the beginning of April this year.”

The mayor says the city will be able to meet its obligations through the current year and he believes that the gaming impasse, now before an arbitration panel, will result in a resolution during the first half of 2013 “and we will get paid what we are owed.”
In the meantime, all sides have to deal with the plan in front of them as presented by the mayor, and that includes 20 layoffs and the elimination of seasonal and part-time workers which will impact a variety of programs normally staffed by those workers. In other words, a real quality-of-life hit, especially during the busy summer days.

Observers expect a fierce battle over the budget plan as it stands now and Fruscione and the council majority will need the support of at least one of the other two council members, Charles Walker or Kristen Grandinetti, to override any mayoral veto of any additional cuts voted on by the council. It could come down to Walker as Grandinetti has rarely, if ever, sided with the majority against the mayor. But she, Walker and Fruscione are all up for election next year and that could factor into any vote related to big tax increase.

Fruscione would not say what will happen with the $3.3 million USA Niagara contract which is set to expire at the end of the year and will be up for renewal, but he did state “it is still one of the cards out there,” as the negotiations move forward.
The council will put together its list of changes to the proposed plan Nov. 27 – 29 and then send it back to Dyster for his review. Work must be completed by Dec. 15.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Nov 06 , 2012